This application is based upon application No. 2000-253837 filed in Japan, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera which has a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD).
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with the development of electronic circuit technology, single-lens reflex cameras have more various functions. In order to assist users to set up various functional modes and to inform the currently set up mode, almost all cameras are equipped with a LCD device.
Almost all conventional LCD devices are of segment displaying type, and therefore, they need display segments exclusively used for each function. Since a display area is limited, the number of the segments arranged therein is also limited. Thus, the conventional LCD devices do not meet diversification of functions.
On the other hand, some conventional LCD display devices employ a dot-matrix type LCD which displays various letters in the same displaying area. But, they are not of full dot-matrix type. Therefore, flexibility of display thereof is not enough; in other words, freedom to displaying them is limited therewith.
Therefore, an object of the present invention, is to provide an apparatus realizing a flexible display, of the various indications, which meets the diversification of camera functions, by employing a full dot-matrix display which displays the indications on its whole displaying surface, and which does not have segment displaying portion.
In order to achieve this and other objects of the present invention, according to an embodiment, there is provided a camera comprising: a display using a dot-matrix which displays information about a photographic condition in arbitrary display form, a selector which selects one of a plurality of display modes, display forms of which are different to each other, wherein standard information required for photographing is displayed as common information among the display modes, and wherein at least one piece of information inherent to each display mode is displayed, and a controller which controls the display to display the one selected by the selector, and at a time of switching on the camera, to display a display mode which has been displayed at a time of switching off the camera previously.
As another embodiment, there is provided a camera comprising: a display using a dot-matrix which displays information about a photographic object in arbitrary display form, a detector which divides a photographic object field into a plurality of photographic areas, and which detects information about the photographic object in each of the photographic areas, and a controller which controls the display to display in a divided form wherein configuration of each of the photographic areas thus divided are displayed, and the information about the photographic object detected in each of the photographic areas is displayed within the configuration associated.
As still another embodiment, there is provided a camera comprising: a display using a dot-matrix which displays information about photographic conditions in arbitrary display form, a detector which detects whether a camera body postures horizontally or vertically, an operation member which can be manually operated, and a controller which changes a direction, in which the information is displayed on the display, based on a posture of the camera body detected by the detector, at a time of operating the operation member.